Human Powered: In Conversation with Katie Waddell

Katie Waddell believes that the work we call the humanities is like a bunch of love letters being written to other humans. She is the director of C21, the Center for 21st Century Studies, one of the first humanities research centers in the United States and a part of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. C21 was awarded a grant from Wisconsin Humanities in support of public programs exploring the “attention economy.” Now entering the third year of challenging “fast” culture with Slow Knowing, Slow Care, and Slow Action, Waddell talks with co-hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker about “Attention Fracking,” what it means to be human, and how we are all profoundly woven into “global human existence.” 

Additional Links to check out:

→ Slow movements—across food, cities, science, scholarship and beyond — call attention to embodied processes of building and maintaining collective life that resist the fast-paced efficiency models, rapid rewards, and short attention spans that increasingly seem to dominate human responses to 21st century social, political, and ecological challenges.  Check out C21’s Slow programs here. 

→ In this episode, we talk about the book Attensity: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, and the term “Attention Fracking.”  Learn more about the authors of the book and the movement here. 

This episode of Human Powered was produced and edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.